governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation

Posts tagged ‘Stock Market’

A cold Republic Day had FM Jaitley looking dapper under his stylish cap as he snuggled into his overcoat on a rain lashed Rajpath munched nuts and broodingly watched the parade go past.

PM MODI’s OFF-SWING

Was he fleshing out what he would say in his budget speech to the Indian Parliament just one month away? Should he bowl a leg-spin veering sharply left towards equity or an off-swing veering right and towards growth? Around him, on its 66 Republic Day, Modi India was visibly exhilarated celebrating its “off-swing” to the right.

China, possibly stung by this sudden change of events, after the cozy, bon homie of the recent jhula swing on the banks of the Sabarmati, retorted by clasping Pakistan even tighter as an eternal friend. Meanwhile the Greek “loony left”, united with the “loony right” to aspire to become a sovereign debt defaulter with the rest of Southern Europe waiting to follow, should their anarchic tactic succeed.

SOVEREIGN DEBT STRATEGY

Avoiding payment by default is not a new strategy. Latin America similarly exploited the short memories of lenders with serial debt defaults. In contrast Asia, in general and India, in particular, has been very puritanical about its debt obligations, never having defaulted even once in the last forty years, though we came close to it in 1991.

Whilst morally correct, it is unclear if this is a good fiscal strategy. Standard and Poors rates India sovereign debt BBB-, the same as Brazil (which defaulted thrice-1983, 1986 and 1990 in the last 40 years) and lower than Peru-BBB+ (which defaulted twice in 1980 and 1984). From this perspective, debt default is not about “prestige”, “national honour” or about financial rewards. It is merely a game of brinksmanship to be played with the market, if it serves us well.

Was FM Jaitley pondering the merits of doing a Latin America; borrowing recklessly to finance a populist, public investment binge, which “growth-wallahs” are crying themselves hoarse demanding?

Borrowing more is the “soft” option to reforming expenditure since tax collections have dipped. Our borrowing capacity for FY 2015-is limited by a Fiscal Deficit (FD) envelop of 3.8% of GDP, down from the target of 4.1% in the current year. Even the higher FD level severely constrained resources though this constraint remained hidden. The previous UPA-II government put so many non-fiscal barriers on investment-lengthy environmental approvals; land acquisition constraints and contractual inconsistencies which ensured that the project stream froze thereby avoiding additional cash outflows.

The present government is working overtime to unclog the pipes and clear payment arrears. These have built up over time but they do not show up in the budget. Unlike Indian companies, the government follows the “cash” and not the “accrual” accounting system. Both unpaid current liabilities and uncollected current assets are not accounted for in the annual budget. This loop hole enabled the previous government to “sell our future” by collecting arrears whilst falsely showing a robust budget allocation.

GROWTH AND INFLATION

Indian “growth-wallahs” are prepared to risk inflation if it means pushing growth to 7% from the 5.5% it is likely to record in the current year. But the trade off, at the margin, between growth, inflation and jobs is unclear. This is dangerous ground for those living on the edge.

Growth is just a meaningless number for the average citizen. Jobs are welcome of course. But we do not have a “jobs filter” that can assess competing investment. We do not even measure changes in employment through the year. In comparison inflation is an everyday reality which the poor and the urban lower middle class have to battle with daily.

If there is a choice between growth and more inflation, the FM would be well advised to choose containing inflation to below 5% even at the cost of chugging along at a 6% growth level.

PUBLIC INVESTMENT IS HIGHLY INEFFICIENT

The real question is if the domestic and international private sector is unwilling to invest, as for example in Nuclear energy, how can it be desirable for public investment? Clearly, an unhelpful institutional context makes these investments into “lemons”. Unless the root causes of their unviability are addressed, such projects are neither good for the private nor the public sector.

Public investment stoked growth is strongly dependent on the efficiency of public expenditure and the avoidance of “pork”- gold plated projects which fail to provide social returns and jobs. Excessive investment in new renewable energy (a rapidly evolving technology) has precisely this risk.

NO BUBBLES PLEASE

Of course the stock markets will not be enthused by such fiscal caution. But who really gains from the irrational financial exuberance (or despair) of stock markets except a few savvy speculators with deep pockets- not all of them Indian either.

Real Estate is another sector which should be left to lag not lead growth. It is a safe haven for “black money” fed speculation. Five years of cheap money since 2009, high inflation and massive corruption are the drivers of the Indian realty bubble. We have to guard against such bubbles, which consume the savings of the middle class, as in Japan (1980 to 1990) and more recently in the US (2004 to 2012).

LOOKING BACK TO THE FUTURE

One stratagem to inject conservatism into the budget would be to project the FY 2015-16 budget on the growth and revenue numbers which were achieved in 2014-15.

Looking backwards to define the fiscal envelop will further constrict spending estimates. But this would be a useful, albeit unorthodox mechanism, to drive better collection of tax and non-tax revenues and contain “pork” in the spending estimates.

If there are “happy” surprises – revenue exceeding estimates or growth exceeding forecast levels, the surplus generated could be allocated to pre-defined schemes in a supplementary budget later in the fiscal year. Leaving something on the table is good strategy anyway to keep stakeholders engaged and responsive.

Our biggest worry is that populism will trump reason. Subsidies are the elephant in the room of fiscal responsibility. Rationalizing them has become a political hot potato with potentially high political costs. This is why reform needs to be both well timed and appropriately sequenced.

LIMITED REFORM WINDOW

FY 2015-16 is the only reform window available to India for the next four years. If we can’t do it now we never shall. The 2016-17 budget shall be populist since Bihar (2016), UP (2017) and then Rajasthan, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh go to the polls (2018) followed by National Elections in 2019.

Can we, for starters at least, legislate a cap on subsidies just as there is a medium term trend and cap on FD? We don’t know enough about the extent, substance, nature and social impact of subsidies. Why not make these aspects more explicit by changing the way in which we present the budget documents?

Two subsidy reform steps are immediately doable.

First, making petroleum prices market determined is a no-brainer in the present scenario of cheap energy. This will plug one gap in the subsidy envelop.

Second, rationalize agricultural subsidies which are provided through multiple mechanisms; assured purchase prices for cereals; cheap fertilizer; cheap power; cheap irrigation water; no tax on income and minimal tax on land. Despite these subsidies, rural wages remain low and migration to urban areas is the only options for landless workers and marginal land owners.

These subsidies have only served to create a class of elite “millionaire” farmers; a tiny fragment at the very tip of the 600 odd million strong farming community. Why not use it to better target the poor, rural folk instead? An additional advantage would be that the rural poor have a significant overlap with Dalits and Muslims, neither of which are part of the BJPs traditional support base.

Will FM Jaitley grasp the moment and push through reform or do we have to wait till 2020 for substantive change?

For the small, timid investor and retirees, Provident Funds and Postal Savings were the investment vehicles of choice till 2000. Interest rate liberalization resulted in a progressive decrease in interest levels on long term deposits from 12% to 8.5% per annum.

The reform was sensible. Government could not afford to subsidize the growing gap between what Provident Funds assured investors and what they earned from investments-mostly in Government debt. This strategy also aligned with the objective of growing stock markets by incentivizing small investors to divert their savings to equity.

THE AGED BORE THE BRUNT OF INTEREST RATE REFORM

What the government forgot or disregarded, was that fixed return investments are the natural and appropriate choice for the aged, small investor, who treasures liquidity; safety and simplicity in transactions; characteristics typical of deposits and debt investments. Not everyone can be like Warren Buffet-the Sage of Omaha, who remains an equities guru, at age 83.

Consequently the negative impact of financial reforms has been borne by those who were least capable of doing so- the aged, retiree without an inflation indexed pension. There were two reasons why this happened.

First, high inflation, higher than the nominal interest earned, has reduced “real (inflation adjusted)” returns from interest to negative. If the interest earned is 8% per annum whilst retail inflation is 9% per annum, the investor is earning no “real” return at all. Instead she is paying an “implicit”, additional 1% on her investment to the government as “Inflation Tax”

Second, even on such negative real return, “explicit” income tax is levied at the applicable rate on the nominal return further reducing the real return to the investor and enhancing the “Inflation Tax” paid to the government.

What hurts even more is that dividend income is tax free but interest is taxed. There is a theoretical logic to this asymmetry. Dividends are paid out of the post-tax profit of a corporate. Since tax has already been paid by the corporate, on this value stream, it need not be paid again by the shareholder. Unlike dividend, interest paid by a corporate to a depositor is a “cost” and is set-off against revenue to reduce its taxable profit. Since no tax is paid by the corporate on this value stream the taxman is right to charge tax on interest in the hands of the receiver

Notwithstanding the soundness of this general principle, a solid case exits for exempting interest from income tax.

First, timid, small savers, particularly the aged, have no alternative financial instruments for investing their savings.

Financial pundits may counter that such investors should invest in the risk averaging, Mutual Funds available in the market. But Mutual Funds (MF) themselves tend to shift from equity into debt based investments in a stock market downturn, as happened during 2008 to 2013 (SEBI Annual Report 2013-14). After deducting administration costs, the returns available to MF investors, are not significantly higher that what they could get themselves from deposits.

It does not help that the Indian Stock Market, like other emerging markets, is highly volatile. In 2013 volatility in the Indian stock market was 17% as compared to 11% for the DOW and 12% for the FTSE (Bloomberg-2014). Volatility dissuades aged, timid, small savers from such stock market based instruments, since they have a strong preference for certainty of nominal return.

Second, Inflation management in an open, developing economy, hugely dependent on energy import is tricky. Our record, whilst much better than Latin America, is nevertheless worrisome for an aged person dependent on a fixed income. The government has demurred in offering inflation indexed, real interest rate, saving instruments for retail investors. Possibly the financial risks associated in offering such an investment are considered too high. How then can one expect an aged retiree to bear the inflation risk?

NARROWLY TARGETED TAX BENEFITS

Clearly, the universe of aged Indians are not all under privileged or timid or naïve investors. The cynical could well ask why should the likes of Rahul Bajaj- the illustrious, Indian industrialist, age 76 need special exemptions on interest income or for that matter senior government pensioners or retired senior employees of the formal private sector.

We hold no brief for them since they can look after themselves. In any case it is unlikely that this set allocates a significant proportion of their savings to fixed return deposits. They don’t need to since they have their inflation indexed pensions as a fall back.

Our plea is for the junior level retirees from the formal sector and all retirees from the informal sector. Assuming that 90% of the 62 million aged (5% of population above the age of 65-2011 census) are retirees from informal employment and further assuming that 30% of these-mostly in urban areas- have no income other than from savings, the target beneficiaries would be around 17 million aged people. Most of these may not even be income tax payees. Those who are taxable would probably pay tax at the lowest tax bracket of 10%.

Consequently, the exemption is narrowly targeted at the deserving and is unlikely to result in significant loss of tax revenue.

POLITICALY CORRECT

There is widespread expectation that the FM would raise the tax free income level from Rs 3 Lakh (for senior citizens) towards Rs 5 Lakhs per year. This is a welcome but generalized benefit and not a specific benefit for the 17 million aged, lower middle class, urban retirees – all of whom are voters.

The BJP has been unfairly targeted for being tardy on social protection. The 2014 national election generated heated debate between “callous growth” and “virtuous equity”- a falsely projected zero-sum choice.

Expectedly, the FM will seek to correct this impression in the 2015 budget. But it is tough to implement efficient social protection schemes on a tight budget. Even efficient, rich, developed economies struggle to walk the thin line between providing perverse incentives to beneficiaries to become economic drop-outs and ensuring the adequacy of social security.

In the meantime, please Mr. FM, spare a thought for the average, pension-less, retiree from the informal sector. Save her from the perils of sinking her savings in unregulated “high return chit funds” in desperation, just to make her two ends meet. Exempting interest earned by individuals from Income Tax is a good way of doing this. There is no better “win-win” than this.